EOCENE PERIOD 



2061 



EPIC 



Man and Adaptation. Of all the animals, 

 man has been the most successful in adjusting 

 himself to different physical environments. He 

 can bear the greatest extremes of climate. His 

 ingenuity enables him to live in tropical cli- 

 mates or in the icy polar regions, in desert 

 lands or in parts of the earth where it rains 

 for the greater part of the year. He responds 

 to his environment in his way of living, of 

 clothing himself, of enjoying himself, of sus- 

 taining himself through labor. When he runs 

 counter to his environment he usually meets 

 with disaster. 



Modification of Environment. Man has dis- 

 covered that, although environment cannot be 

 made over, he can modify it within limits so as 

 to make life easier, richer, better worth living. 

 The measure of civilization is somewhat a mat- 

 ter of the degree to which man^ceases to be 

 entirely the creature of his environment. It is 

 to conquer his environment or adapt it to his 

 needs and desires that he tunnels through 

 mountains, bridges rivers, changes the course 

 of streams, digs irrigation canals and builds rail- 

 roads, ships, flying machines and great tele- 

 phone and telegraph systems in order to pro- 

 vide easier intercourse with his fellows. He 

 modifies his climatic environment by the spe- 

 cial character of his architecture and by devices 

 for heating or cooling his home. He is even 

 learning,, through the work of such men as 

 Luther Burbank, that he can do for plants 

 what he cannot do for himself create new en- 

 vironments to develop new species, effecting 

 in a few years changes that nature takes cycles 

 to accomplish. Cultivation is only another 

 way of expressing changed environment. 



Social Environment. As civilization ad- 

 vances, greater emphasis comes to be placed on 

 social environment, particularly in its applica- 

 tion to the early education of the child. Bur- 

 bank has said: 



"I have taken the common daisy and trained 

 it and cultivated it by proper selection and en- 

 vironment until it has been increased in size, 

 beauty and productiveness at least four hun- 

 dredfold. * * * Surround the child with the 

 proper environment to bring out certain qualities 

 and the results must come." 



However, the consideration of social environ- 

 ment is more properly the province of sociol- 

 ogy, and reference should be made to the arti- 

 cles on that subject and to the discussion un- 

 der HEREDITY. L.M.B. 



EOCENE, e'oseen, PERIOD, a division of 

 geologic time, immediately following the Cre- 

 taceous Period and forming the oldest division 



of the Cenozoic Era. The name means the 

 Period of the New Dawn. In North America 

 the rocks formed during this period extended 

 along the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mex- 

 ico and up the Mississippi Valley north of the 

 Ohio. They are also found in some places 

 in the Rocky Mountains. The rocks are sand- 

 stone, limestone, marls and clays. By the 

 end of this period nearly all existing groups 

 of mammals had become clearly defined. See 

 CENOZOIC ERA; CRETACEOUS SYSTEM; GEOLOGY. 



EPAMINONDAS, e pam i non ' das, a general 

 and statesman of Thebes, a master of tactics 

 and of strategy. His influence on military art 

 in Greece was powerful. Realizing the in- 

 creasing maritime power of Athens, he equipped 

 a fleet of 100 triremes (see GALLEY) and won 

 several cities from the Athenian confederacy. 

 When complications threatened Thebes he 

 mustered a large army and four times success- 

 fully invaded the Peloponnesus, or southern 

 peninsula of Greece, at the head of the The- 

 bans. His great achievement in politics was 

 the final overthrow of Sparta's power in the 

 Peloponnesus by a decisive battle on the site 

 of Mantineia. Epaminondas was severely 

 wounded during that combat. 



EPHESUS, ej'esus, "the city of the Ephe- 

 sians," one of the twelve ancient cities of Asia 

 Minor. The location here of the Temple of 

 Diana made Ephesus a sacred place from an 

 early date; one of the most common expres- 

 sions which have come down the ages is "Great 

 is Diana of the Ephesians." Its situation at 

 the starting point of one of the great trade 

 routes of Asia Minor led to its commercial 

 growth. Saint Paul's labors in Ephesus, last- 

 ing three years, indicate its prosperity (Acts 

 XVIII-XIX; / Cor. XV-XVI). A powerful 

 Christian church was established in the city, 

 and prominent men of the Apostolic age made 

 their headquarters there. The destruction of 

 its great temple by the Goths in A. D. 263 

 marked the beginning of the decline of Ephe- 

 sus, and before the days of Tamerlane (see 

 TIMUR) it had almost perished. 



EPIC, ep'ik, a narrative poem of a very 

 special type. Paul Revere's Ride, An Incident 

 of the French Camp and Tennyson's Revenge 

 are narrative poems, but they cannot be classed 

 as epics, for, according to a high authority 



The subject of an epic poem must be some one 

 great, complex action. The principal personages 

 must belong to the high places of the world, and 

 must be grand and elevated in their ideas and in 

 their bearing. The measure must be sonorous. 



